Topic: Quadra Beam transducer poor signal on port side Transducer or Unit?

[Sonshine Fishing]

I have a 997c SI. I have both side image and quadra beam transducer. Last time out the quadra beam image was very poor on port side. I assumed I had trash on transom mounted transducer. When we pulled the boat out of the water there was nothing on it. This is on a 21 foot Searay with V8 I/O, I can not reach the transducer with the boat in the water. I have not had the boat in the water since. I did not switch to side image transducer to check the image. My main question is, would this more likely be a transducer or head unit problem? I could find no damage on the transducer. I really thought I had trash on the transducer, There was some image on the port side. I tried different views same results. I can't put the boat in the water right now because of work we are doing to the boat. We start fishing in mid March and need this working then.

[sonar2000]

Interesting.  Do you have the transducer mounted on the starboard side?  I have seen some interference with one side or the other depending on the side the transducer was mounted. boat lhull configuration plays into this when selecting the transom mount position. This may have to do with aother topic posting where we discuss the possibiuloity of a directly under the boat cone coverage and possibily a small area of no coverage under the boat. We are not sure of the actual 86 degrees of the signal cone or even how it is applied to the water colume. If the 86 degrees is across the top of the water and the remaining 4 degrees is under the boat then I would suppose that there could be some area of signal that could coorospond to the opposide side of the boat from the transducer.  if possible you might try lowering the transducer if you have transom room.  Wish you had time to try but the fishing season is just atround the corner.  chuck

[George]

Sonshine Fishing

Welcome aboard Sonshine.

I also have a Quadra Beam and a SideImaging transducer.  Like yours mine is also on the port side and it works great.

I take it you SI transducer is working well.

What are the conditions when you are seeing all of the junk when using the QuadraBeam?

First off how does it look when just drifting with the motors off?

Is it possible that you have it too close to the motor and what your seeing is a lot of air bubbles?

Also is the transducer is down in the water and bent down slightly to minimize developing air bubbles?

The more information you have about the issue the easier it will be for someone to help you. 

My transducer is just below my transom.
George

[sonar2000]

Sonshine.   On one of our boats we had made an aluminum  channel to which the transducer is mounted and then on the boat a corrosponding channel to fit the transducer channel in to.  we can positiion the height or in this case the depth of the transducer in the water column.  our reason was if running at speeds abouve 6 MPH we did not want to have the transducer in harms way of hitting an under the surface object.  For sonar runs to reduce the possibility of bouncing off the boat bottom we would lower the transducer deeper into the water and below the boat bottom.   It was not to hard to make and worked well.    Chuck

[Stymie]

My apologies for thread jacking...

but QB question intrigued me as I'm thinking of going with that on my TM.

When do you prefer the QB over the SI?  What prompted you to have both?

[George]

Stymie,

I also had a QuadraBeam on on my trolling motor but changed it out for and SI transducer when DI came out and like it better.  I originally purchased the QuadraBeam to get a different view of  the bottom and I am still playing with the different views.

George

[soretoe]

It almost sounds like the quad beam transducer is not mounted so that it is level with the boat in the water.

[Sonshine Fishing]

I have had this system since 997c SI first came out including both transducers. I used the quadra beam almost exclusively last year. I fish in the Gulf of Mexico mostly 60 feet and deeper. This problem started during the trip on my last trip. I figured I had gotten a piece of trash caught on the transducer, I even tried backing up hard to knock it off. I have inspected it and see no sign of damage. I use the quadra beam because of the multicolor display. Most of the bottom is barren, when you run over something, structure or fish you get different colors which catches your attention. With the side image display you have to pay close attention to the screen. My 2 best fishing spots I found by accident. When I first installed the system I did have a blockage problem with my side image transducer. I had to move it down the vee of the transom to get it below trim cylinder on my outdrive.